IMC's Capital Equipment Asset Tracking
Both government – particularly the military – and private sector organizations like construction firms are challenged to track expensive equipment throughout the lifecycle of projects and beyond when they are "dry-docked" in a depot or sold off. This is especially critical when heavy equipment like cranes, barges and tanks are numerous and large-scale because relocating them can require complex planning and incur significant costs.
Managers not only must know where all their assets are deployed and for how long — and how and when to redeploy them — but they must also balance amortization and depreciation rates on assets often valued in the millions. In short, they must decide when buying or selling equipment they've been leasing is more cost-effective than committing to the life of the lease.
IMC's enterprise portal-based Asset Tracking lets managers plan for and execute such activities. It offers a customizable browser interface for diverse constituencies and uses portlets to link to multiple project legacy systems of the organizations involved in the project like project management, expense reporting and collaboration.
Connected by broadband networks and the Internet (and in the case of the military, the secure NPRNet network) project personnel manage system data and documents to —
- assemble project equipment requirements
- requisition equipment from other projects or storage
- buy and lease relevant new equipment
- track project progress to determine equipment disposition
- monitor equipment expenses
- prepare and submit equipment budgets
- manage contracts, funding and other documents
- perform economic analyses of lease, storage, maintenance and related equipment costs
- redeploy, store or sell off equipment when it is most cost- effective to do so
- prepare and issue custom reports on current inventory, equipment disposition and condition and projected cost, etc.
- prepare and process standard forms for expense reports, etc.
- create audit trails of pertinent documents
- and append electronic signatures for regulatory compliance and other purposes
IMC's Capital Equipment Asset Tracking is based on a J2EE platform so it interoperates across organizations with disparate legacy systems that must cost-effectively reuse, pay down, sell off or warehouse expensive equipment deployed on short- or long-term projects.